How Piazolla found himself, and how you might too

While performing at a concert the other night, the conductor of the orchestra read the following excert from the composer Astor Piazolla's (1921-1994) biography:

"When I met her [Nadia Boulanger, his teacher], I showed her my kilos of symphonies and sonatas. She started to read them and suddenly came out with a horrible sentence: "It's very well written." And stopped, with a big period, round like a soccer ball. After a long while, she said: "Here you are like Stravinsky, like Bartók, like Ravel, but you know what's wrong? I can't find Piazzolla in this." And she began to investigate my private life: what I did, what I did and did not play, if I was single, married, or living with someone, she was like an FBI agent! And I was very ashamed to tell her that I was a tango musician. Finally I said, "I play in a night club." I didn't want to say cabaret. And she answered, "Night club, mais oui, but that is a cabaret, isn't it?" "Yes", I answered, and thought, "I'll hit this woman in the head with a radio…." It wasn't easy to lie to her. She kept asking: "You say that you are not pianist. What instrument do you play, then?" And I didn't want to tell her that I was a bandoneón player, because I thought, "Then she will throw me from the fourth floor." Finally, I confessed and she asked me to play some bars of a tango of my own. She suddenly opened her eyes, took my hand and told me: "You idiot, that's Piazzolla!" And I took all the music I composed, ten years of my life, and sent it to hell in two seconds." (Excerpted from wikipedia entry here)

 

The reading caught my attention, as it seemed to highlight a central facet of creative expression; namely, that of finding your own voice. 

 

In my experience, it's not uncommon for some teachers to extoll the virtues of studying the "masters" of a particular field, be it music, writing, or some other form of art. Learn how the experts perform their craft, they say, and you might become one yourself.

 

This was a popular view in 19th-century America, and continues to hold some weight today. Indeed, it is an attractive proposition for the cultivation of creative expression, but one I expect is more nuanced than that. As Piazzola's example suggests, we can learn a great deal by studying the work of the establishment; he managed, by his teacher's estimation, to mimic Stravinsky, Bartok, and Ravel in his music, ten years in the making. Yet in all the time he managed this feat while passing over the tango style for which is he now well known. Rather than embrace the music of the cabaret (his workplace), Piazolla sought to parrot the masters of classical music instead; it wasn't until he found his own voice that he became a "master" himself

 

Piazolla's example is instructive, because it illustrates how mindless parroting can lead us astray from art that is true to ourselves. Studying the work of experts has value, but it isn't everything. For Piazolla, it took a persistent teacher exclaiming, "You idiot, that's Piazolla!" to turn him away from mimicry, and start embracing his creativity. Finding his "voice" required getting over feelings of inferiority with regard to his more-original compositions. It likely wasn't easy, but once he stopped trying to be someone else , Piazolla became himself. And that, for what it's worth, seems to have made all the difference. 

 

Happy Tuesday, friends :)  

A summary of Jack Daniels' coaching philosophy

In preparation for a coaching clinic in March, I've recently begun reacquainting myself with the work of Jack Daniels. For those who don't know, Daniels is a well-known and respected running coach and physiologist. Even his detractors, such as Dr. Timothy Noakes, grant that while "...[Daniels] uses an unproven and perhaps dated model to explain the physiological reasons for his success...in time, science will catch up with [him] and provide a more correct physiological explanation as to why his methods, field-tested for more than three decades, produce the superior results his athletes have achieved" (Noakes, The Lore of Running, 4th Edition, 2001).

That said, it's not Daniels' physiological model that interests me, so much as his approach to coaching.

While established within the context of modern physiology, Daniels' approach seeks above all to apply scientifically-tested ideas to the particulars of individual cases. This is important he believes, because "Everyone has different physical and mental strengths and weaknesses, and each runner must be treated according to his or her own mix. Take the time to evaluate in detail the factors, past and present, that influence a training program" (Daniels, Daniels' Running Formula, 2nd Edition, 2005). For Daniels', it's not a matter of devising a secret training formula (the title of his book aside) so much as the prudent application of knowledge according to the circumstances and abilities of individual runners.

Accordingly, we might then imagine Daniels' coaching approach as an inquiry into the basic needs of individuals, and how those needs can be met given circumstances. "We're all individuals," says Daniels, "and must train with this in mind to achieve success...Know your body, identify your strengths and weaknesses, establish priorities, and try to learn more about why you do what you do and why you might consider trying something new in your approach" (Daniels 6-7).

Too often one hears of coaches who impose a system upon their athletes without regard to the ability or needs of those athletes. In many cases, this leads to stunted development and/or injury, which usually precludes an athlete from ever maximizing their potential. This is unfortunate, because there are no doubt many talented individuals who think they suck at athletics simply because they're always getting injured or running poorly in the big races. And we're not speaking merely of would-be champions, but people of all shapes and ability who might have found in running a fulfilling, life-long appreciation of exercise and good health. The needs of these athletes, largely anonymous, are at least as important as those who make a name for themselves, however briefly, in the sport.

At its base then, the Daniels' approach relies on a close understanding between athlete and coach. Coaches and athletes may well benefit if they spend time evaluating what the athlete can do, what they'd like to be able to do, and the kinds of steps that may lead to realizing those goals in the near, medium, and long term. Flexibility, that is, a willingness to alter those steps due to circumstances, would seem essential. Understanding how and why an approach is working (or not working) seems equally so. At the end of the day, Daniels' coaching method therefore seems less a prescription for creating champions so much as a way of approaching unique cases of potential-maximizing. This approach may have great value.

Happy Friday, friends :)

Challenge or opportunity? Your choice

Some days I simply have no mirth or good cheer. Perhaps you've experienced this as well. It's no fun in my experience, but that's not to say it isn't instructive. A dearth of mirth--if the expression might be used--can be a real bummer, a challenge if you will. But it can also, given a chance, prove a valuable opportunity. And if there's one thing I've found regarding opportunities, it is that they have a way of restoring one's sense of balance and life-ish zest. The difference often appears to exist as a matter of interpretation.

Let me give you an example. In November, I ran my first marathon in Philadelphia. In May when I signed up, I was all stoked to finally have a shot at giving the marathon distance (what Haile Gebrselassie once called "the king of the distances") a chance. With college running obligations at an end, I was eager to start something new.

Then I got a job working in a cooler (a rather large refrigerator kept at 37 degrees F) of a local farmer's grocery store. The work proved more physical than anything I had ever done (excluding perhaps a 2-week archaeology dig I did two summers before), and wore me out to the point that marathon training ground to a halt. My tired legs simply refused to run, and so I walked as much as I could. As the end of November approached, the marathon increasingly seemed to me like the most daunting challenge I had yet faced. How could I possibly cover 26.2 miles without having run more than 5km in a single effort the previous three months? For a while, the prospect made me gloomy.

The week of the marathon dawned, and I knew I was not ready. I had every intention of showing up on race day, but I could not honestly say whether my body would permit me to finish. It was at this moment that I decided to do something radical. It didn't involve some cutting-edge training method, or a new, innovative nutrional suppliment. No, it was something simple: I decided to reinterpret the coming race. Rather than assuming by default that a marathon was a challenge, I decided my first marathon was going to be an opportunity.

But an opportunity for what? That took some thinking, but after reflection I decided it would be an opportunity to observe the effects of a really long run on myself and others. How would I respond when faced with the sort of fatigue only experienced after several hours of running? What would it be like to exhaust the better part of all my glycogen reserves? And how would the other racers respond when the same happened to them?

These are a few of the questions that helped me reinterpret the marathon. It would be a challenge for sure, but it would also be an opportunity to have some very novel experiences. That helped, and while everything started going wrong at mile 15, I still finished in good spirits. The opportunity had been seized, and by so doing the challenge also happened to be conquered.

While I'm not certain of it, I like to think I finished because I had a positive object in mind: experience a marathon from start to finish, with all the feelings that go with that. Sure it was difficult, but it was also a chance I didn't want to lose. And that seemed to make a difference.

 Perhaps the same technique can be applied to mirthless days. They can be a real challenge to survive, but they can also be an opportunity to examine those feelings and thoughts that drive out the happiness from you. Like weeds in a garden, negative thinking can either be a nuisance or the stuff from which life-giving compost is produced to make your garden grow. It's a challenge certainly (I fail at it all the time), but as with a marathon or anything difficult, it is within your power to choose which aspect on which to focus. Will it be a challenge, or will it be an opportunity. Your choice may make all the difference. Maybe.

Something to consider, perhaps.

Happy Tuesday, friends :)

A gentler approach to coaching

A recent report on the ScienceDaily highlights new insights into the role environment plays in the development of young athletes. Entitled "Focus on Self-Improvement, rather than winning, benefits young athletes," the report writes, "Underserved youth athletes report more life skill and character development when their coaches place greater emphasis on creating caring climates instead of focusing on competition, according to research from Michigan State University's Institute for the Study of Youth Sports."

At its root, the study, led by Daniel Gould and Larry Lauer of MSU, and Ryan Flett of West Virginia University, found that the environment established by a coach could have pronounced effects on the pyschological and emotional development of young athletes, both positively and negatively. As the report writes,"...the more coaches create caring and tasked-oriented climates, the more likely positive developmental gains will occur. Creating an 'ego climate' was found to be the single most powerful predictor of negative youth experiences."

Practically defined, an "ego climate" is an environment in which the primary focus is "beating others," an approach the study found,"...was associated with negative developmental outcomes such as negative peer influences and inappropriate adult behaviors."

The study points toward a gentler approach to coaching, particularly (but I would suggest, not exclusively) with youth. For many people, sport is a valuable activity in which physical development can often be accompanied by mental and emotional growth. As this study suggests, however, sport can also reinforce and cultivate ego-oriented emotional states that may or may not cause athletes considerable problems later in life. It would seem that, just as a physical body can be overtrained, an ego-oriented mental approach can also be overcooked. And much like with overtraining (discussed here), the study cited above suggests that the negative effects of this "ego climate" can last a long time.

While the pressure in some circles for results in sport is great, coaches should keep these things in mind. At the end of the day, no one benefits from an overtrained or overly-egotistical athlete. People vary in their beliefs on this matter, but I believe sport should have a wholesome influence on those who engage in it, helping them lead happier, healthier lives. For young people in particular, sport also seems to offer a way of learning about themselves and others as they mature and grow up, pointing to ways in which cooperation, friendship, and human kindness may be fostered as adults. Others may disagree, but I see no excess of these qualities in adults of my own time; there's room for more if more might be found. Good coaching may prove valuable in this regard. Something to consider perhaps.

Happy Tuesday, friends :)

A helpful interregnum

Today, Zen Habits blogger Leo Babauta discussed what he calls, "the one little habit...that has changed everything else in my life." He calls it "The pause upon which all else relies," and essentially involves a voluntary pause before action. The notion, I believe, warrants discussion.

Why might we consider pausing before action? According to Mr. Babauta, we sometimes get ourselves into trouble, "...because we act on urges without thinking, without realizing it." Perhaps this has happened to you, and perhaps not. There may even be times when impulsive action has changed your life for the better. Mr. Babauta's post does not discuss these instances, but they do seem to happen, particularly for people with a high degree of inhibition. In many cases, however, a pause, however brief, may do much to foster a wholesome outcome.

How might this work? Mr. Babauta writes that a pause creates "space" for people; "space to breathe, to think, to be without action." It is cultivated by observing urges as they happen. Doing so naturally creates a pause between the birth of an urge and its subsequent actuation, perhaps giving time for the slower elements of the intellect to catch-up.

Given recent discussions, this model makes some sense. As discussed in an earlier post, psychologist Daniel Kahneman has shown that human thought appears to occur on two distinct yet interrelated levels, one fast and one slow. Each level is well-adapted for some circumstances, and ill-adapted for others. That we have a quick, association-driven thought process, and a slow, calculating thought-process is perhaps one more indication of the flexible, generalist-nature of human beings; taken together, each appears, more or less, to compensate for the deficiencies of the other.

It may be through this very relationship that Mr. Babauta's pause method operates. Experience suggests that urges arise from thinking associated with the "fast" type of thinking. As mentioned above, this mode of thinking is quite good in some situations and quite awful in others. Observing the urge before acting on it, as Mr. Babauta advocates, may allow the "slow" type of thinking to consider the proposed action, and provide reasons for or against its actuation. In a situations where reflexes play a significant role, it seems likely that this slow method of thought would get in the way. But in situations where time is less significant, it seems likely that a moment or two of thought could heavily influence one's future action. Observing an urge in such situations (for example, whether to take out a loan, eat another slice of pie, etc.) could either strengthen the case for the urge, or reveal reasons it should not be followed. In other words, sometimes a little thought can save you a lot of trouble. Sometimes.

Something to consider, perhaps.

Happy Thursday, friends :)

A life of inquiry does not stop at books

The Hechinger Report of Columbia University recently did a series in the Washington Post on trends in higher education around the world, including Canada, Japan, India, and the UK. In broad strokes, the reports suggest three general ways in which higher education is currently evolving: the proliferation of university study in regions and among populations previously devoid of such opportunities (India); the expansion of cheap, online degree programs that, in some cases, do away with the traditional college-campus altogether (UK); and a renewed emphasis on gearing higher education toward the cultivation of practical skills and the needs of employers (Canada, Japan).

Arguments abound to explain these trends, including the economic imperative of a highly-educated (and skilled) population in a globalized world, the perceived incongruity between higher education's "product" and the needs of job-seekers, and the rising cost of higher education compared to the benefits it (at least in previous cases) grants on its customers. In short, some now argue that, like general education in earlier times, higher-education has become a matter of national concern.

Coupled with the emerging consciousness that future economic growth may well depend on the quality of a country's higher education is, in the United States at least, a back-lash against college education in general. The reasons for this back-lash are nebulous and varied, but many cases seem to share in a belief that the costs people incur to attend college are not worth the benefits it brings. My sense is that this is partly due to two, related reasons: that a college education often requires a fair bit of debt to fund, and that a person can graduate college without sufficient skills or opportunities to find work that pays off that debt. This makes some people quite angry, particularly if they were raised in an environment that assumed a college education assured, if not success, at least a healthy crack at it. And while unemployment figures show far lower unemployment for college graduates than non-graduates, "a healthly crack" at success may no longer be a natural consequence of higher education.

Taken together, that is, higher education as a national concern, and the general back-lash against education that doesn't lead to jobs, these issues seem to provide the impetus for some of the trends noted above by the Hechinger Report. In developed countries where traditional higher education is readily available (assuming you have the funds), colleges are responding to various feedback loops that point toward a greater emphasis on skills and a reduction in costs. Kosen schools in Japan and two-year colleges in Canada increasingly tailor their curriculum according to feedback from employers; a practice that not only makes college graduates from these institutions more employable, but also makes companies who hire them more productive. These benefits may well provide new avenues for national economic growth in a post-industrial world.

Yet is the purpose of education merely economic in nature? I ask in part because I went to a liberal arts college which prides itself on its ability to teach critical thinking skills to students. This type of education is under attack, in part because it is very expensive, and in part because while "critical thinking" is generally useful in life, many employers in the present economy seem intent on finding employees with more tangible skills. I've heard several stories of classmates from high school who acquired a trade and currently earn more than classmates from college who acquired a humanities degree and now work in retail or the food-service industry. Clearly the right set of skills can pay, but should higher education move solely in that direction?

What if the merits of a skills-oriented program of study were combined with a liberal-arts emphasis on critical thinking? That is the subject of Scott Carlson's recent article in The Chronicle for Higher Education, in which he explores the issue of applying a college education to real-life problems. Mr. Carlson suggests that certain types of college educations (presumably "liberal arts") do a good job of getting students to see and understand an issue from a variety of perspectives, but often leave them powerless to do anything about it. For instance, knowing all about the issue of sustainable farming does not mean a person knows how to farm sustainably. If all a person knows is books, it seems rather unlikely they'll have the technical background to convert intellectual understanding into practical solutions. Put another way, a clear understanding is no substitute for a dearth of skills; whether acquired before, during, or after one's intellectual education, skills seem to be the tool which people use to conceive of and convert ideas into realities.

It seems fair to think then that the distinction between mechanical and intellectual knowledge is artificial at best, and downright harmful at worst. Cultivating a "life of inquiry" is a worthy goal for college educators, but inquiry does not stop at books, nor does it exclude knowledge of everyday usefulness. It requires tools and experience, as well as a discerning mind. Perhaps then the future of higher education will see these two educational-tracts move closer together. Something to consider, perhaps.

Happy Tuesday, friends :)